Just Landed a Media In-House Role in LA; NYC Corporate Lawyer; AMA Forum

[Anonymous User]

I just got a job offer from a media/entertainment company in LA after 4-5 years at two NYC law firms. It's a dream job for me and I couldn't be happier. A bit on my background:

• My work at the first law firm (V5) focused on M&A and capital markets.
• My work at the second law firm (V20? I think, not sure) focused on technology transactions.
• I went to law school in NYC but grew up in northern California.
• My SO is moving to the LA office of her NYC law firm.

I'm not sure exactly what I can help anyone with, but this message board helped me a lot when I was in law school to evaluate different firms, learn some about different practice areas and generally make more informed decisions. I'm more than happy to speak to the in-house recruiting process during COVID (at least my own experience with the process), law firm hiring, lateraling to a different law firm, what different practice groups are like (I've tried my fair share of corporate work) and whatever else.

I won't get too much into certain details for anonymity reasons but anything else goes. If nobody has any questions either, that's fine, too, just figured I'd try to give back as things wind down for me in NY.

[purplegoldtornado]

Why the change from V5 to V20? If you could’ve started at the V20, would you have?

[almondbutter]

How large of a role do you think your work in tech trans played in finding your in-house position? Do you think you could have gotten your current role if you had stuck to only M&A work?

[Anonymous User]

Congrats! Did you have prior media / entertainment experience? If not, how did you sell your interest / fit / experience for this opportunity?

[fmrez]

Congrats! How long from application to offer? How did you learn about the job (recruiter, job board, etc.)?

[Anonymous User]

Why the change from V5 to V20? If you could’ve started at the V20, would you have?

A couple reasons, but the principal one was that I didn't have a lot of agency to do the work I wanted - it was a sort of "flourish where we plant you" mentality. I was perfectly content to do whatever was thrown at me for the first couple years (for me, a lot of private M&A, a little public M&A, and capital markets), but once I discovered I really didn't like commitment papers (a finance thing) and wanted to get more involved with clients in certain industries (tech, life sciences), it felt like I was putting a lot of my time into things that weren't helping me get closer to the jobs I eventually wanted.

The second firm had a smaller (certainly less prestigious) corporate practice but still did great work with great clients, and gave me the ability to chase down certain work. Culture was also better/more sustainable, and tech transactions work has less fire drills in general (because none of the companies involved are freaking out because they're at the end of their life cycle and/or there generally just isn't a need for ultra-fast turnaround).

The catch is that I couldn't have known exactly what work I'd prefer to do without spending a couple years practicing. I found the practice areas I liked more by ruling things out one by one as opposed to knowing from day one what my preferences were. If I knew what work I wanted, I would've gone straight to the V20, but assuming I was still in the dark and looking to keep my options broad I would start at the V5 all over again.

How large of a role do you think your work in tech trans played in finding your in-house position? Do you think you could have gotten your current role if you had stuck to only M&A work?

The tech trans work was huge for my particular role, but they also really liked that I had generalist corporate experience (and flagged that specifically). I would've had some chance if I'd stuck to M&A (since a lot of places still see it as a general proxy for broad corporate experience) but things would've been more uncertain.

Two things I want to flag here, though:

1. In-house job applications are fundamentally more uncertain than law firm job applications. With law firms, especially in NY, they might hire hundreds of summer associates at once (you're not auditioning for a single slot), and turnover at law firms is high. In-house jobs will fill themselves on an as-needed basis and it might be pretty rare that people even leave. In my case, the legal team was looking to grow but it's still under 15 people total. What this all means is that you never know when the companies you like will even have a slot open, and if they don't, it's not your fault. You can't interview for a position that doesn't exist.

2. M&A is still the most versatile practice group. Tech transactions attorneys I've worked with have lamented that they're pigeonholed into doing certain niche work. M&A will forever give you the most optionality. That said, I do acknowledge that LA during COVID has more tech transactions-focused job postings currently than general corporate postings, but that's a temporary peculiarity with COVID and probably limited to LA for all I know.

In spite of both 1 and 2 above, if you're a privacy lawyer, I'm sure you can get a good in-house job SOMEWHERE right now and fast. It's only gonna get more important.

[Anonymous User]

Congrats! Did you have prior media / entertainment experience? If not, how did you sell your interest / fit / experience for this opportunity?

I had limited media/entertainment experience specifically, but had done a good amount of licensing agreements, other IP work and generally followed this particular company's industry/could speak to it. To my surprise, they were fine with me not being an expert on certain things (I thought I'd have to pitch myself on the skills front much harder) and were content to let me learn them on the job. They were very fit/culture-focused in all the interviews, though, and did spend a lot of time assessing how I'd respond to feedback and did try to assess (in various ways) whether I'd be a quick learner.

CAVEAT- for the role I accepted, they wanted to me to be something of a generalist (though with principal responsibility for certain specialized transactions I didn't have a ton of experience with). Growing companies tend to prefer this more. Large public companies and companies with massive legal departments tend to make legal roles much more specialized, so if you don't fit the job description it'll likely be more of a knock against you. That said, I'd still apply for any job if I were you, and let them be the ones to say no if they want to.

The hardest part about not having specific experience is getting your foot in the door, from my experience. Once you actually have the interview lined up, it's far easier to sell the rest of you/your work ethic/your willingness to learn/work experience/etc. There were a couple jobs I didn't hear back from because I suspect my work experience wasn't sufficiently on point, but I had a pretty high success rate once I got the first interview lined up.

Congrats! How long from application to offer? How did you learn about the job (recruiter, job board, etc.)?

This particular one was a LinkedIn job posting. I used that, the goinhouse site, and word of mouth from people I was friends with or worked with, principally.

This one moved super fast and only took about a month from application to offer. That said, it really is variable with in-house jobs. I imagine that any company hiring now during COVID will tend to move much quicker, because it's more likely they need someone to start sooner. That said, a friend of mine landed her job a year after she started her general search, and the job she took gave her an offer about 5 months after she sent in her application. Timing will really vary because it often relies heavily on the specific needs of the company for a particular position... even within the same company, they might want to onboard a privacy lawyer really fast, but they might be OK with taking their time hiring someone else.

[Anonymous User]

Why the change from V5 to V20? If you could’ve started at the V20, would you have?

A couple reasons, but the principal one was that I didn't have a lot of agency to do the work I wanted - it was a sort of "flourish where we plant you" mentality. I was perfectly content to do whatever was thrown at me for the first couple years (for me, a lot of private M&A, a little public M&A, and capital markets), but once I discovered I really didn't like commitment papers (a finance thing) and wanted to get more involved with clients in certain industries (tech, life sciences), it felt like I was putting a lot of my time into things that weren't helping me get closer to the jobs I eventually wanted.

The second firm had a smaller (certainly less prestigious) corporate practice but still did great work with great clients, and gave me the ability to chase down certain work. Culture was also better/more sustainable, and tech transactions work has less fire drills in general (because none of the companies involved are freaking out because they're at the end of their life cycle and/or there generally just isn't a need for ultra-fast turnaround).

The catch is that I couldn't have known exactly what work I'd prefer to do without spending a couple years practicing. I found the practice areas I liked more by ruling things out one by one as opposed to knowing from day one what my preferences were. If I knew what work I wanted, I would've gone straight to the V20, but assuming I was still in the dark and looking to keep my options broad I would start at the V5 all over again.

How large of a role do you think your work in tech trans played in finding your in-house position? Do you think you could have gotten your current role if you had stuck to only M&A work?

The tech trans work was huge for my particular role, but they also really liked that I had generalist corporate experience (and flagged that specifically). I would've had some chance if I'd stuck to M&A (since a lot of places still see it as a general proxy for broad corporate experience) but things would've been more uncertain.

Two things I want to flag here, though:

1. In-house job applications are fundamentally more uncertain than law firm job applications. With law firms, especially in NY, they might hire hundreds of summer associates at once (you're not auditioning for a single slot), and turnover at law firms is high. In-house jobs will fill themselves on an as-needed basis and it might be pretty rare that people even leave. In my case, the legal team was looking to grow but it's still under 15 people total. What this all means is that you never know when the companies you like will even have a slot open, and if they don't, it's not your fault. You can't interview for a position that doesn't exist.

2. M&A is still the most versatile practice group. Tech transactions attorneys I've worked with have lamented that they're pigeonholed into doing certain niche work. M&A will forever give you the most optionality. That said, I do acknowledge that LA during COVID has more tech transactions-focused job postings currently than general corporate postings, but that's a temporary peculiarity with COVID and probably limited to LA for all I know.

In spite of both 1 and 2 above, if you're a privacy lawyer, I'm sure you can get a good in-house job SOMEWHERE right now. It's only gonna get more important.

I’m a mid level doing tech trans in the Bay Area. Your experience with M&A having more optionality than tech trans is surprising to me. I regularly check in house positions (thinking about a move to a tech company at some point), and I don’t see how M&A will provide more options, at least for large tech companies. Maybe that’s true outside the Bay Area/tech? What would make M&A more portable than tech trans?

Also, if you wouldn’t mind sharing comp/equity, that would be really appreciated.

[s1m4]

I hate to ask this, but could you please give a comp range for this type of role? There is word on this forum that LA-based entertainment/media roles pay less than mid level biglaw positions, so I (and I'm sure many others) am curious about what kind of salary to expect when thinking about planning out a career to ultimately end up at one of these places. Thank you for your time!

[KM2016]

I hate to ask this, but could you please give a comp range for this type of role? There is word on this forum that LA-based entertainment/media roles pay less than mid level biglaw positions, so I (and I'm sure many others) am curious about what kind of salary to expect when thinking about planning out a career to ultimately end up at one of these places. Thank you for your time!

Just want to chime in to point out that most in house roles that mid-level big law associates will transition into (Counsel, Associate Counsel, Senior Counsel), regardless of industry, pay less than mid-level big law salaries (at least in terms of base salary plus bonus; obviously some public companies offer RSUs or stock options that tip the scales, but the norm is that you'll take a pay cut going in house).

[arandomuser1332]

Why the change from V5 to V20? If you could’ve started at the V20, would you have?

A couple reasons, but the principal one was that I didn't have a lot of agency to do the work I wanted - it was a sort of "flourish where we plant you" mentality. I was perfectly content to do whatever was thrown at me for the first couple years (for me, a lot of private M&A, a little public M&A, and capital markets), but once I discovered I really didn't like commitment papers (a finance thing) and wanted to get more involved with clients in certain industries (tech, life sciences), it felt like I was putting a lot of my time into things that weren't helping me get closer to the jobs I eventually wanted.

The second firm had a smaller (certainly less prestigious) corporate practice but still did great work with great clients, and gave me the ability to chase down certain work. Culture was also better/more sustainable, and tech transactions work has less fire drills in general (because none of the companies involved are freaking out because they're at the end of their life cycle and/or there generally just isn't a need for ultra-fast turnaround).

The catch is that I couldn't have known exactly what work I'd prefer to do without spending a couple years practicing. I found the practice areas I liked more by ruling things out one by one as opposed to knowing from day one what my preferences were. If I knew what work I wanted, I would've gone straight to the V20, but assuming I was still in the dark and looking to keep my options broad I would start at the V5 all over again.

This is super helpful. I'd love to ask a follow-up since I'm in a somewhat similar situation. Would you mind PM'ing me?

[Anonymous User]

Do you feel that law school pedigree (e.g., only T14 or CA schools) matters for these in-house positions if you have the requisite big law experience criteria in NYC/LA?

[Anonymous User]

You have any advice for interviews? My interviews for in-house have been pretty bad so far, very few even past the screener, which is surprising since I always felt I was strong in interviews, but I'm having trouble really putting together a good story.

[Anonymous User]

Sorry for the delay on this! Been busy packing/tying up loose ends these last couple days.

I’m a mid level doing tech trans in the Bay Area. Your experience with M&A having more optionality than tech trans is surprising to me. I regularly check in house positions (thinking about a move to a tech company at some point), and I don’t see how M&A will provide more options, at least for large tech companies. Maybe that’s true outside the Bay Area/tech? What would make M&A more portable than tech trans?

Also, if you wouldn’t mind sharing comp/equity, that would be really appreciated.

I think if I was in the Bay Area, things would be different re: exit options (with the glut of tech and life sciences companies). In New York, things were definitely more limited (at least in terms of the variety of in-house exits), though there'd definitely be a few really interesting jobs popping up from time to time.

I've generally had the impression that in-house jobs (at least the ones I've interviewed for, or have seen people go to) have seen M&A experience as the clearest proxy of "generalist" corporate experience. If you do more Capital Markets or Finance, people tend to push you toward doing very similar work; if you do M&A, people tend to assume you can do almost anything that randomly comes up (investment? sure. standard licensing agreement? probably not a big deal. generic vendor or supply contract? sure).

My compensation:

$170-190k base compensation
$50-60k bonus compensation (half of that guaranteed, half incentive)
Matching 401k
Unrelated, but other perks/better benefits than I've had

They indicated that I'd have a good chance at a raise within 2-3 years.

I hate to ask this, but could you please give a comp range for this type of role? There is word on this forum that LA-based entertainment/media roles pay less than mid level biglaw positions, so I (and I'm sure many others) am curious about what kind of salary to expect when thinking about planning out a career to ultimately end up at one of these places. Thank you for your time!

See above for numbers, but they definitely should pay less than mid-level big law positions. The tradeoff's that I'll be out of big law, working less, in the industry I want to be in. I don't think you should expect a raise if you're going in-house for the most part (and especially unlikely in the media industry).

[Anonymous User]

I hate to ask this, but could you please give a comp range for this type of role? There is word on this forum that LA-based entertainment/media roles pay less than mid level biglaw positions, so I (and I'm sure many others) am curious about what kind of salary to expect when thinking about planning out a career to ultimately end up at one of these places. Thank you for your time!

Just want to chime in to point out that most in house roles that mid-level big law associates will transition into (Counsel, Associate Counsel, Senior Counsel), regardless of industry, pay less than mid-level big law salaries (at least in terms of base salary plus bonus; obviously some public companies offer RSUs or stock options that tip the scales, but the norm is that you'll take a pay cut going in house).

^ Yes! Agreed with all this.

This is super helpful. I'd love to ask a follow-up since I'm in a somewhat similar situation. Would you mind PM'ing me?

Sure, I'll PM you![/quote]

Do you feel that law school pedigree (e.g., only T14 or CA schools) matters for these in-house positions if you have the requisite big law experience criteria in NYC/LA?

I don't think so. If you have the requisite big law experience, I think you'd be more than fine (seriously, I'm not just saying this... I think you already crossed the highest hurdle coming out of a lower-ranked school by landing the big law experience). As some proof, some of the current lawyers at the company I'll be going to have come from smaller east coast law schools, including some of the higher-ups.

Things can obviously vary between companies but I don't think this industry in particular is prejudiced against certain law schools.

You have any advice for interviews? My interviews for in-house have been pretty bad so far, very few even past the screener, which is surprising since I always felt I was strong in interviews, but I'm having trouble really putting together a good story.

Hard to say for certain what's going wrong, but I can ramble off a couple things that I thought worked for me:

• What sort of story are you having trouble putting together? If it's the general story about why you want the job and to leave your firm, that could be what's holding you back (if it sounds fake or unconvincing). That said, I don't think this answer needs to be super complicated, and should come pretty naturally. You don't need to come off as "I bleed entertainment law" or anything like that, but a general genuine interest in what they do is probably significant. Happy to talk further on this/talk about how I handled things if you give any more specifics on the story.
• Know up front if the job you're applying for is looking for a generalist or someone to fill a specific niche. The job I took very strongly preferred a generalist, but other companies in the same/similar industry wanted people to focus on specific types of agreements. For the job I eventually took, it wasn't ultra-clear to me up front that they wanted a generalist.
• I got a ton of behavioral questions during my interviews, to better assess my work style, how I handled feedback, how I handled conflict, how I dealt with various setbacks, etc., some of them ultra-specific. It's hard to instantly think of an event for everything on the spot (without awkwardly pausing for a while), but it was much easier for me to think of 8-ish events beforehand that could be spun to address a variety of situations. I kind of had a smaller pool of ideas that I'd rehearsed a bit, and it was easy enough to tailor them for the exact questions asked during the interviews themselves.

The last thing I'll say is that these interviews are naturally more volatile than they ever were in law school (only hiring one person for a limited role, unclear timelines, less-streamlined interview/feedback processes, etc.). It's not always your fault. A friend of mine finished his interviews, was told they'd loved meeting him, and a month and a half later was told that they'd decided to hire nobody at this time (because their parent company put in a hiring freeze) but that they'd reach back out to him in a couple more months if things changed.

Happy to talk more on this if you talk more about your story or are curious about any part of the interviews in particular.

[SamuelDanforth]

I've generally had the impression that in-house jobs (at least the ones I've interviewed for, or have seen people go to) have seen M&A experience as the clearest proxy of "generalist" corporate experience. If you do more Capital Markets or Finance, people tend to push you toward doing very similar work; if you do M&A, people tend to assume you can do almost anything that randomly comes up (investment? sure. standard licensing agreement? probably not a big deal. generic vendor or supply contract? sure).

Sorry, this may be a bit off-topic, but how do you think EC/VC experience fits into this spectrum? For folks who go to firms like Gunderson, Fenwick, WSGR, etc, a general corporate associate might end up doing (I think) a mix of EC/VC, CM, and M&A. To the degree that experience skews EC/VC, I imagine landing a job at a public tech company might be difficult. However, it also seems like fairly "generalist" corporate work. Do you have any sense of how that experience is viewed when it comes to hiring for in-house roles in the tech sphere (broadly defined).

[Anonymous User]

Do you know of any patent litigators who have gone in-house at, well, any kind of business? If so, could you share any details?

[PB&J.D.]

This is super helpful. I'd love to ask a follow-up since I'm in a somewhat similar situation. Would you mind PM'ing me?

Sure, I'll PM you!

OP, could you PM me as well?

[Anonymous User]

I've generally had the impression that in-house jobs (at least the ones I've interviewed for, or have seen people go to) have seen M&A experience as the clearest proxy of "generalist" corporate experience. If you do more Capital Markets or Finance, people tend to push you toward doing very similar work; if you do M&A, people tend to assume you can do almost anything that randomly comes up (investment? sure. standard licensing agreement? probably not a big deal. generic vendor or supply contract? sure).

Sorry, this may be a bit off-topic, but how do you think EC/VC experience fits into this spectrum? For folks who go to firms like Gunderson, Fenwick, WSGR, etc, a general corporate associate might end up doing (I think) a mix of EC/VC, CM, and M&A. To the degree that experience skews EC/VC, I imagine landing a job at a public tech company might be difficult. However, it also seems like fairly "generalist" corporate work. Do you have any sense of how that experience is viewed when it comes to hiring for in-house roles in the tech sphere (broadly defined).

I think you’re set up great for in-house jobs, about as good as it gets. Even more so to the extent you are doing a bit of M&A, a bit of EC/VC, etc.

You can absolutely still work at a large public tech company. Almost all of their acquisitions will be private tech companies anyway, if the role’s focused on M&A, and that should be a lot of the M&A you’d do at the firms you mentioned.

[Anonymous User]

Do you know of any patent litigators who have gone in-house at, well, any kind of business? If so, could you share any details?

Some of the people at the company I’ll be joining are former patent litigators (and now doing a mix of general IP work/IP portfolio management, licensing agreements and anything else that comes up). My sample size of examples isn’t huge but it seemed like it’d be easier for IP litigators to make the jump than other types of litigators, at least relatively.

For a lot of tech companies, the IP is the bedrock set of assets, so there’s absolutely a need for someone who really understands it. I know IBM and Facebook have a ton of them. If you have any background in copyright/other forms of IP, that’d probably make the pitch to media and similar companies a lot easier, too, though I don’t know if you’re solely focused on patents. I’d apply broadly if I were you (not much to lose from doing so, I think), and if you come across any patent litigators in positions you find interesting, maybe see if they’d be willing to talk about their job, how they’re liking it and the transition.

Are you looking to litigate in-house, it pivot to a more general role (that might include both lit and non-lit roles)?

[legalpotato]

Apologies OP, but mind PM'ing me too?

[Anonymous User]

How do these entertainment companies or studio legal teams operate? I’ve heard stories of people who do work in house that was not their practice area in big law. Do you have flexibility to explore within the legal or business affairs department (provided you have the requisite experience)?

[Anonymous User]

Do you know of any patent litigators who have gone in-house at, well, any kind of business? If so, could you share any details?

Some of the people at the company I’ll be joining are former patent litigators (and now doing a mix of general IP work/IP portfolio management, licensing agreements and anything else that comes up). My sample size of examples isn’t huge but it seemed like it’d be easier for IP litigators to make the jump than other types of litigators, at least relatively.

For a lot of tech companies, the IP is the bedrock set of assets, so there’s absolutely a need for someone who really understands it. I know IBM and Facebook have a ton of them. If you have any background in copyright/other forms of IP, that’d probably make the pitch to media and similar companies a lot easier, too, though I don’t know if you’re solely focused on patents. I’d apply broadly if I were you (not much to lose from doing so, I think), and if you come across any patent litigators in positions you find interesting, maybe see if they’d be willing to talk about their job, how they’re liking it and the transition.

Are you looking to litigate in-house, it pivot to a more general role (that might include both lit and non-lit roles)?

Thanks a lot for your response. It's encouraging to know that you have colleagues who were former patent litigators. Without divulging too much information, could you give some general descriptors of the type of company you're at?

Also, did you find your job through things like goinhouse.com/online listings or was it through a client of the firm you already worked at? Would your company give cold applicants a shot vs associates from firms you've worked with? I'm not necessarily looking to litigate in-house. I think a more general role would be preferable, but I'm open to a wide variety of types of positions.

[Anonymous User]

Apologies OP, but mind PM'ing me too?

Sure thing. Sorry for the delay!

How do these entertainment companies or studio legal teams operate? I’ve heard stories of people who do work in house that was not their practice area in big law. Do you have flexibility to explore within the legal or business affairs department (provided you have the requisite experience)?

It varies by company, largely in response to how big the legal department is. A giant public company with a larger legal team will have more specialized people and less room to try your hand at different things. That said, most entertainment companies/studios/etc. are on the medium to smaller side, so there's often some flexibility. A couple caveats:

1. A lot of these companies do have counsel focused on certain products, like Peacock for NBC or similar. If that's the role you apply for, you're going to focus on that streaming platform (or whatever the "product" is).

2. If you apply for a very specialized position to begin with, like privacy, you're going to be focusing fairly hard on privacy (though perhaps for a lot of different initiatives within the company).

The legal team I'm joining is quite small so there's a ton of flexibility to get involved where I see fit. That said, you mention wanting to explore their "business affairs department" - to be realistic, you're not going to do a ton of business work as in-house counsel unless (PERHAPS) you're going to a start-up. This shouldn't be a surprise. If you want a business role, apply for a business role and have the qualifications for a business role.

Thanks a lot for your response. It's encouraging to know that you have colleagues who were former patent litigators. Without divulging too much information, could you give some general descriptors of the type of company you're at?

Also, did you find your job through things like goinhouse.com/online listings or was it through a client of the firm you already worked at? Would your company give cold applicants a shot vs associates from firms you've worked with? I'm not necessarily looking to litigate in-house. I think a more general role would be preferable, but I'm open to a wide variety of types of positions.

I won't describe my company further, sorry!

That said, happy to talk about finding the job. I sent out 9 job applications and got a first-round interview at 5. Of those 9, 6 were through online listings like goinhouse.com (including the company I eventually accepted an offer at), 1 was through a friend who worked at the company, and 2 were through client connections. I think most companies would absolutely give cold applicants a shot (certainly any company with a public job posting), though having the client connection might help if they're not actively searching for anyone new but happen to know you in particular and like working with you.

I'd apply broadly if I were you (don't rule yourself out preemptively - let them be the ones to say no to you), but do take the time to tailor your cover letter (if the job asks for one), resume, etc. For most of the jobs I applied to and heard back from, it was very clear that they'd read through all my materials and latched onto at least one thing in there that made me seem like a decent/compelling candidate. For some it was certain work experience and for one guy it was honestly one of the interests listed on my rseume.

[legalpotato]

Apologies OP, but mind PM'ing me too?

Sure thing. Sorry for the delay!

How do these entertainment companies or studio legal teams operate? I’ve heard stories of people who do work in house that was not their practice area in big law. Do you have flexibility to explore within the legal or business affairs department (provided you have the requisite experience)?

It varies by company, largely in response to how big the legal department is. A giant public company with a larger legal team will have more specialized people and less room to try your hand at different things. That said, most entertainment companies/studios/etc. are on the medium to smaller side, so there's often some flexibility. A couple caveats:

1. A lot of these companies do have counsel focused on certain products, like Peacock for NBC or similar. If that's the role you apply for, you're going to focus on that streaming platform (or whatever the "product" is).

2. If you apply for a very specialized position to begin with, like privacy, you're going to be focusing fairly hard on privacy (though perhaps for a lot of different initiatives within the company).

The legal team I'm joining is quite small so there's a ton of flexibility to get involved where I see fit. That said, you mention wanting to explore their "business affairs department" - to be realistic, you're not going to do a ton of business work as in-house counsel unless (PERHAPS) you're going to a start-up. This shouldn't be a surprise. If you want a business role, apply for a business role and have the qualifications for a business role.

Thanks a lot for your response. It's encouraging to know that you have colleagues who were former patent litigators. Without divulging too much information, could you give some general descriptors of the type of company you're at?

Also, did you find your job through things like goinhouse.com/online listings or was it through a client of the firm you already worked at? Would your company give cold applicants a shot vs associates from firms you've worked with? I'm not necessarily looking to litigate in-house. I think a more general role would be preferable, but I'm open to a wide variety of types of positions.

I won't describe my company further, sorry!

That said, happy to talk about finding the job. I sent out 9 job applications and got a first-round interview at 5. Of those 9, 6 were through online listings like goinhouse.com (including the company I eventually accepted an offer at), 1 was through a friend who worked at the company, and 2 were through client connections. I think most companies would absolutely give cold applicants a shot (certainly any company with a public job posting), though having the client connection might help if they're not actively searching for anyone new but happen to know you in particular and like working with you.

I'd apply broadly if I were you (don't rule yourself out preemptively - let them be the ones to say no to you), but do take the time to tailor your cover letter (if the job asks for one), resume, etc. For most of the jobs I applied to and heard back from, it was very clear that they'd read through all my materials and latched onto at least one thing in there that made me seem like a decent/compelling candidate. For some it was certain work experience and for one guy it was honestly one of the interests listed on my rseume.

Just following up for the PM. Thanks!